Countdown to Catastrophe

Fancypants' Note: I wanted to go back & re-read an article from the Sunday Times Online today (03/21/13), but the website won't allow readers to view the entire article unless you're a paid subscriber. So, I'm posting this to my blog so I can find it again whenever I want to.

Here's the article...

UK Article Presents Doomsday Scenario for N Korea Triggering Nuclear Conflict Involving US, China

Countdown to Catastrophe

Sunday Times Online in English 17 Mar 13
[Report by Michael Sheridan: " Countdown To Catastrophe "]
(Click here to open the Sunday Times Online website)

Experts say Armageddon, triggered by a Korean conflict sucking China and America into war, could be only four days away.

Kim Jong-un could be driven to push the red button by demands for a show of strength from his generals.

The time on the Doomsday Clock is five minutes to midnight. So says the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the clock in 1947. Nowhere is it closer to doomsday than on the Korean peninsula, where two nuclear-armed enemies — North Korea and the United States with its South Korean ally — face each other across the tense Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Testing a bomb, firing missiles, hurling bloody rhetoric: North Korea has done it all in recent months. Last week it withdrew from the armistice that ended the Korean War 60 years ago. In reaction, America is bolstering its anti-missile defenses. Are North Korea’s threats real or just for show? Could it all go wrong and lead to nuclear war? Yes it could and this is how. The following scenario is fiction but it’s based on fact.

Day One: North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, 29, visits an army unit on Wolnae island off his west coast. The soldiers are training to storm the South Korean island of Baeknyeong, six miles away. He exhorts them to “steel their hearts”. On the way back to Pyongyang, army chief Choe Ryong-hae and Defense Minister Kim Kyok-sik warn the young Kim that people think he is weak. They defy him to prove them wrong. The three decide on a calculated act of aggression to show that the plump trainee dictator is the real thing.

Day Two: North Korean artillery opens up on Baeknyeong island. Under a curtain of shellfire, North Korean speedboats race across the West Sea. Black-clad special forces leap ashore screaming slogans. They massacre the small garrison of South Korean conscripts. The red banner flies over Baeknyeong. In Seoul, President Park Geun-hye, a conservative, agrees to her generals’ advice that they must hit back. Park’s mother was murdered by a North Korean assassin. Her father, who ruled as a military dictator in the 1960s and 1970s, was shot dead by his own spy chief. The South Koreans have an iron lady in command. They send F-15 fighter bombers of the 102nd Squadron and F-16 fighters of the 161st Squadron to strike deep into North Korea. Two reserve tank bases and military tunnel networks are left in ruins. No planes are lost. Enraged, the North Korean generals give Kim an ultimatum: fight now or face a coup. The Chinese ambassador to Pyongyang tries to call on Kim but is refused an audience. As night falls in Beijing, Xi Jinping, China’s new leader, calls President Barack Obama, warning him to stay out of it. Xi reminds him that China is North Korea’s ally. On the telephone Obama is noncommittal. Afterwards he turns to his security “principals” for urgent advice. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and secretary of state John Kerry, both Vietnam veterans, hate the thought of war. National security adviser Tom Donilon tries to finesse the options. None is any good.

The message the Chinese get: the Americans are dithering.

There is no hesitation in Tokyo, where the cabinet convenes a crisis meeting with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. A black limousine conveys the nationalist prime minister Shinzo Abe to the Imperial Palace late that night.

Day Three: Asia awakes to the news that Japan has suspended article 9 of its 1947 constitution — the clause renouncing the use of war. In the morning rush hour, a salvo of North Korean rockets and shells slams into the posh suburb of Gangnam in the South Korean capital of Seoul, 35 miles from the DMZ that separates the South from the North.

Hundreds die, including the YouTube rapper Psy. The South Koreans scramble their F-15 Slam Eagles. Copying an Israeli plan, they target party buildings in Pyongyang and a giant statue of Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea.

By lunchtime the South Korean and Japanese stock markets have collapsed, oil is $250 a barrel and gold soars to $2,500 an ounce. South Korea orders all nuclear reactors to be shut down and secured. Foreign nationals mob the air and sea ports to get out. A cyberattack traced to Shandong, in eastern China, shuts down the South Korean air traffic control system and blocks some reactor controls. South Korea’s nerds, however, can out-geek the Chinese any day. The world’s most wired society is soon online again. At the White House, an aide comes in to see Donilon with the news that former President Bill Clinton, who has been to North Korea, is offering to use his famous charm on Kim. Donilon rolls his eyes.

Obama tries to phone Kim, remembering that basketball icon Dennis Rodman, who has been to North Korea more recently, said Kim just wanted a call. The White House cannot get through. Another aide comes in to see Donilon. Former President Jimmy Carter, who went to North Korea ages ago, is offering to meet Kim for prayer and dialogue. Donilon rolls his eyes again. When it comes to Pyongyang there are no back channels to warn Kim of impending disaster as events get out of his control. Mid-afternoon sees Aegis-class destroyers and frigates of the Japanese navy at sea off North Korea. It is an exercise they have done before. Their orders are to shoot down any missiles heading for Japan. Chinese state television and radio break into scheduled program’s to broadcast a hardline statement warning Japan off.

As mobs take to the streets in Chinese cities, Obama places a call to Xi, who gives permission for an airlift of 120,000 Japanese Hotel rooms in Hong Kong and Taipei fetch $1,000 a night.
In a Skype call the Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang tells his ministry in Stockholm that he sees tanks and rocket-launchers in the streets. Then North Korean television goes off the air. All communications are cut.

Locked in a White House crisis meeting, Obama calls the leaders of China, Japan, Russia and France. After Kerry reminds him, he calls David Cameron as well. At sunset a train carrying the ambassadors of Russia, Iran and Syria crosses the metal girder bridge from North Korea to the Chinese city of Dandong. Television crews are banned from filming the six metal freight cars coupled to it. The United States finally goes on alert. Planes roar off the carrier USS George Washington in the Sea of Japan and 28,500 US troops line up with their exhausted South Korean allies at the DMZ. In the darkness new US X-band radars in Taiwan and Japan detect dozens of Chinese warplanes patrolling the eastern seaboard of China. All civilian air traffic in northeast Asia ceases. The evacuation flights of the Japanese are grounded, stranding 87,000 in hostile land. In Beijing the stocky Xi collapses during a late-night meeting of the supreme seven- man standing committee of the politburo. His blood pressure is 180/120 — a hypertensive emergency.

The meeting goes on without him but junior member Zhang Dejiang, an economist trained in North Korea, takes the lead in the discussion.

Day Four: in the early hours China’s retired “security tsar”, Zhou Yongkang, is awakened at his luxurious Beijing villa. A black Audi takes him to the politburo, where a red telephone sits on a desk. Would he please try to call Kim? Zhou obliges. He gets the North Korean secret police chief. They chat about old times but, sorry, Kim is watching a Mickey Mouse movie. In South Korea President Park is asleep. Before going to bed she authorized all necessary defenses and took a sleeping pill. But Kim is on amphetamines and gets in first: he gives the order for the all-out bombardment of Seoul. At dawn 5,000 guns fire from emplacements hidden for decades in tunnels and pits.

Kim has miscalculated — again. Damage is heavy but casualties are light because most civilians are spending the night in shelters. The Americans and South Koreans pour back a barrage of fire. North Korean tanks and suicide squads charge across barbed wire and mines at the DMZ. They are wiped out. The Kim dynasty, set up with Stalin’s support, is tottering.

In Pyongyang Kim’s uncle and mentor, Jang Song-thaek, shoots himself with a bodyguard’s pistol. Kim hears the shot down the corridor of his bunker: his generals confront him. Russian eavesdroppers pick up a one-word command on a tapped copper telephone cable from the bunker beneath Kim Il-sung’s mausoleum. The bug was planted by the KGB in the 1970s. Amazingly, it still works.

Three minutes later President Vladimir Putin calls Obama on the hotline. He warns of imminent catastrophe. Voice steely, Putin pledges that “Russia, with our long Christian heritage, will never put civilization in peril”. Obama addresses the nation from the Oval Office, saying the supreme national interests of the United States are at stake. While he speaks, the White House tries to call Xi, but a voice at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing says Xi is not available. Analysts at the US National Security Agency detect a flash at North Korea’s “civilian satellite” launch pad on the remote northeast coast. One minute and 16 seconds later a flash and a mushroom cloud are seen over the Yongsan district of Seoul, where the giant US military headquarters — with its extensive housing and schools for the families of service personnel — has been since the 1950s. In the White House situation room all eyes are on Obama. He . . .

So, Is It Really Five Minutes To Midnight?

Last week Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, told a trusted contact, David Ignatius of The Washington Post, that “there is now a real danger of an accident, incident or miscalculation on the Korean peninsula”. Is America prepared? No. As in the fictional scenario, the Americans seem to be vaguely hoping that the Chinese will do something about it. Kissinger, who led the US opening to China, thinks Donilon, the national security adviser, must forge a strategic plan with Beijing about what to do in a crisis. The CIA, like MI6 and the Chinese ministry of state security, is short on facts that it will reveal to the public. In recent weeks South Korean intelligence briefings to lawmakers, which inevitably leak, have sown confusion about what the South knows.

So here are a few facts. The North Koreans have a bomb. Eleven years ago a western intelligence officer, a physicist by training, sat in a smoke-filled bar in Seoul and explained in detail why he thought the North Koreans could probably do it. In 2006 they invited Siegfried Hecker, a top American nuclear weapons scientist, to hold a piece of their plutonium, the vital ingredient of a small bomb. It was heavy and slightly warm. “I held the plutonium and it passed the test,” Hecker said later. The director of the Yongbyon nuclear research reactor had told him it was “good bomb-grade plutonium”, he added. Jeffrey Park, of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, says that on February 12 this year — barely four weeks ago — a seismological station in Mudanjiang, China, had picked up a telltale seismic “P wave” shock of 5.1 magnitude, indicating a man-made explosion underground. It was North Korea’s third nuclear test. “The yield of the 2013 test was more than three times larger than the yield of the 2009 test and more than 15 times larger than the yield of the 2006 test,” Park writes in the bulletin, which was founded by former members of the original Manhattan atomic bomb project to warn of the nuclear threat to humanity.

So Kim is building a better bomb. North Korea called the February 12 device “small and powerful”. It also tested a new long-range ballistic missile on December 12. As Kim knows, America’s first atomic bombs were so big that they needed a giant aircraft, the B-29, to carry them. There is no chance that a vintage North Korean bomber could make it past the world’s most sophisticated air defenses around Seoul. But a missile might. The claim could be a bluff. “Miniaturizing” a device is incredibly difficult. America’s Manhattan project almost failed until it called on a White Russian genius, George Kistiakowsky, to cast the precision explosives around the plutonium core that turned the Nagasaki bomb from a big bang into an atomic flash. Today’s missile warheads require machining to micro- tolerances that the North Koreans may not achieve. “If this is proven,” writes Victor Cha, who was point man for Korea on George W Bush’s national security council and is now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, “then they will have crossed another technological threshold.” Bluffing can be lethal. “Saddam Hussein [Husayn] showed the world how easy it can be for a secretive government to persuade world leaders . . . that it possesses weapons of mass destruction,” Park observes.

Yet ambiguity is also a weapon in the dictator’s arsenal — and, as Iraq showed, it poses a dilemma for his foes.

The bad news, say critics of the Obama administration, is that North Korea is a blueprint for American failure that sets a terrible precedent for Iran, which says its atoms are for peace but won’t let the world see what it has.

The good news, say administration officials, is that the North Koreans are rational and they are vulnerable to Chinese pressure. The White House has seized on statements by Communist party officials in Beijing suggesting that China might dump its ally of 60 years. “You’re starting to see them recalculate and say: you know what? This is starting to get out of hand,” Obama said on ABC News last week.

MAYBE. One fact in my doomsday scenario is that Zhou Yongkang, the retired chief of Chinese state security who is asked to call Pyongyang, was the godfather to Kim Jong-un’s succession. Zhou was the only foreigner standing on the podium in Pyongyang on the day that Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, led his son out to roars of applause as the anointed heir to the world’s only hereditary Stalinist dictatorship. Zhou is known to believe that the Kim regime is stable. His opinion still counts. China’s relations with North Korea are influenced by the army, the Communist party’s international department and the hardliners like Zhou. The diplomats at the foreign ministry do not count for much. As a result, even though China signed up to United Nations sanctions, they are not rigidly enforced. Trucks and trains rumble across the iron bridge at Dandong night and day with scant customs checks. China supplies 80% of North Korea’s energy and 45% of its food.

China’s new boss Xi (who, as far as we know, is a healthy 59-year-old with no blood pressure problems) may have the power to change course. It hasn’t happened yet. All Chinese leaders deeply fear a reunited, capitalist, democratic Korea, allied to the United States, on their border. What do the North Koreans themselves want?

“Under no circumstances will North Korea under the leadership of the Kim family relinquish its nuclear weapons — and this family might stay in control for decades,” says Andrei Lankov, who looks at the “Hermit Kingdom” from a unique perspective. A rumpled, chain-smoking Russian academic, Lankov studied at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang and now peppers the policy debate with biting contributions, often composed in coffee shops in Seoul near his present campus. The North Koreans look at Saddam and Muammar Gadaffi [Al-Qadhafi] as examples of why they are right, he says. The nukes are a deterrent, a diplomatic tool and a propaganda asset. What’s to trade?
Lankov argues that Pyongyang’s denuclearization is a dream and the best that can be hoped for is a negotiated settlement under which North Korea’s existing weapons would be safeguarded and it would not build any more.

Any such deal would also sever its links with Iran and stop the two “axis of evil” states collaborating on nuclear bombs and missiles. North Korea could then reform its economy. “The ideal destination for Kim Jong-un & co is, of course, a Chinese-style ‘developmental dictatorship’. It will keep its nuclear weapons but will be less willing to engage in provocative behavior,” Lankov believes.
That is politically unacceptable to the United States and its allies, who face hard decisions on Iran within 18 months and cannot risk creating a precedent. In a bizarre example of globalization, the fate of a reclusive Asian dictatorship is linked to the fate of us all. “We should be ready for trouble,” Lankov warned in a prescient paper last autumn. “A reforming North Korea will likely be very unstable and might collapse. Worse still, collapse is likely to come with little to no warning. Among other things, it may provoke unnecessary confrontation between America and China.” Obama does not agree. “We may slowly be in a position where we’re able to force a recalculation on the part of the North Koreans,” he said.

If he is right, then catastrophe scenarios can stay where they belong — in the realms of airport fiction. But what if he’s wrong?

Christmas 2012

I heard about all the pagan origins a few years ago, and was really disturbed by what I was seeing in scripture. I decided that until I could see direction from God through His word, I’d go without any references to Christmas in our home. After all I didn’t want to do as the heathen do. I didn’t want to worship the Lord the same way the heathen worship their false gods. That was really difficult for my family & me as we’d been raised [in God-fearing homes and Christian schools] celebrating Christmas, not with a Santa figure, but we did have a tree, lights, gifts, big meals, and the normal festivities one would expect to see in a Christian home. So we’ve now gone 4 years w/o the décor and my wife and girls have been very understanding of my position – even though they disagreed with it.

The problem I was having was not that we were worshipping God with a tree [that seems pretty nonsensical to me as that had never even been a consideration in all my years of celebrating Christmas], nor were we worshipping the tree itself. The problem was the symbol of the tree itself. My logic went that – if the symbols were originally Christian, then they were ok to use (such as the rainbow); but if the symbols were originally pagan and had been Christianized, that I felt compelled not to have anything to do with. So what it really came down to was the use of the symbols.

Last week I noticed something in scripture that I’d never picked up on before. Paul tells the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 8, that it’s ok to eat meat sacrificed to idols provided it’s not done in front of a weaker brother who feels it’s sinful (paraphrased). But then later on in a letter to two of the seven churches in Revelation 2:12-29, Jesus tells them that He has this against them, that they eat meat sacrificed to idols. This caused problems for me as I couldn’t seem to reconcile these two. I KNOW the word of God doesn’t contradict itself, so if God tells us it’s ok to eat the meat that had been sacrificed to idols, He must not have any problems with the meat itself, but rather the lack of concern/love for a [weaker] brother who found this sinful.

Based on that, the take-away I saw was that God doesn’t want us to use His creation in any way that might damage a brother’s faith. However, He doesn’t have a problem with us enjoying His creation either. After all, we read in Genesis that He was pleased with His creation when He created it. He said it was good.

I think back to a poem that my grandfather used to recite that I just found out is a song called Maker of the Universe. The lyrics read…

The Maker of the universe,
As Man for man was made a curse.
The claims of Law which He had made,
Unto the uttermost He paid.
His holy fingers made the bough,
Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow.
The nails that pierced His hands were mined
In secret places He designed.

He made the forest whence there sprung
The tree on which His body hung.
He died upon a cross of wood,
Yet made the hill on which it stood.
The sky that darkened o'er His head,
By Him above the earth was spread.
The sun that hid from Him it's face
By His decree was poised in space.

The spear which spilled His precious blood
Was tempered in the fires of God.
The grave in which His form was laid
Was hewn in rocks His hands had made.

The throne on which He now appears
Was His for everlasting years.
But a new glory crowns His brow
And every knee to Him shall bow.

I don’t see evidence from the bible that God has a problem with the physical objects of His creation that mankind has chosen to use as symbols to represent other things. From what I see between what Paul told the Corinthian church, and what Jesus told Pergamos and Thyatira, He doesn't have a problem with the physical meat. Likewise, He doesn't have a problem with nails, or spears, or crosses even though they were all instruments used by sinful man to torture Him to death. Likewise, God doesn't have a problem with His evergreen trees, whether they’re outside the house or inside the house. I think He does have a problem when mankind chooses to use any part of His creation in worship of either false gods, or Himself, or in any way that might damage a weaker brother’s faith. 

And it is with this understanding that we dusted off the fake Christmas tree in the garage and our daughters had a great time decorating the house together.

I may not have made my point clearly enough, in fact, I probably didn't, but I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. I'm fully convinced in my own mind based on the guidance of the Holy Spirit through His word that we have freedom in Jesus Christ in regards to anything that He didn't expressly forbid in His word. Christians know that although there are powers and principalities behind idols, the idols themselves aren't anything (not that I'm advocating the use of idols) but wood and stone. Evil symbols are a way for Christians to identify earth dwellers who are enslaved to them. Christians aren't enslaved to Christmas trees, or lights, or gifts. We are voluntarily enslaved through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. He is our number one, on our list of one.

 

We’ve had a great time this year celebrating the moment that the promised “He” of Genesis 3, loved us enough that He came to tabernacle with us in order to offer Himself as a spotless sacrifice for our sins, that we might be made righteous in Him in the eyes of the Father.

 
Jesus isn’t the reason for the season – He’s the reason for everything!

Thank you Jesus.

My Response to a Quote from J.I. Packer

Recently, my daughter posted the below-listed quote from J.I. Packer on Facebook. I saw it, and 'liked' the post, but didn't comment on it. Later on that night, I started thinking about it moreso, and saw the Calvinism in it. I must have gotten sidetracked with something else, becuase I left it alone. I should've addressed it, but for some dumb reason, I didn't. No excuse, I know, but that's the truth.

In any case, my Uncle saw it and shot me a brief email letting me know he was concerned because the quote says something different than what the bible says. I thanked him for the heads up, as I ALWAYS want to know when my theology is incorrect. This caused me to revisit the quote and write up a response to it that I believe would be biblically correct; but before I could get it posted, my daughter deleted her post. So I'm putting my thoughts up as a blog post. My thoughts don't necessarily flow smoothly as I'm far from a polished writer, but I think this is pretty important.

Here it is...

"The saving power of the cross does not depend on faith being added to it; its saving power is such that faith flows from it." - J. I. Packer

I should’ve commented on this, and for whatever reason, it slipped my mind. I’m sorry for that. That was really dumb on my part.

In past conversations with some of my Calvinist brothers, they take the position that there is no such thing as free will, and as such, we have no choice in the matter of being saved. They go on to say that if we have the ability to choose to accept or reject Jesus’ free gift, we are contributing something to our own salvation. I strongly disagree with this way of thinking, as it isn’t completely thinking the issues through. Once you take the time to really think it through, in light of the numerous examples evidenced in God’s word of different people making the choice to do God's will, you’ll see that the Calvinist's position is not correct.

I believe that Calvinists don’t understand that Jesus died for the sins for ALL of mankind, but rather only the elect. The bible says the opposite. John 3:16 says that “God so loved THE WORLD”, not just the elect. Hebrews 10:10 says Jesus died “once for ALL”, not just for the elect. Jesus provided salvation for ALL of mankind. He even provided salvation for those who have gone/will go to Hell. Does this mean that all are saved? Not at all! As I just said, some have already gone to Hell and many more are on their way.

The actual act of salvation itself was provided 100% by Jesus paying the price for our sins, in our place. This was the work that satisfied the justice required of by God the Father (Rom.3:35, 1John2:2, 1John4:10). However, Jesus death on the cross isn’t what saves us, otherwise we would ALL be saved because Jesus died “once for ALL” (Heb.10:10), and it is His will that all men be saved (1 Tim.2:3-4). Jesus death on the cross for our sins is what allows ALL people the opportunity to be saved. Does that mean our choice to accept Jesus’ gift of salvation is something we add to the salvation process? No way! Salvation is of the Lord. Our choice to accept Jesus' free gift isn't what satisfied the Father. We can’t do anything to satisfy the justice of God the Father. The price being paid, by Jesus our Messiah, is what satisfied Him, and ONLY Jesus could pay that price. As a result of Jesus satisfying the Father (providing salvation) we now have the opportunity to make a choice to accept His payment in full or to reject it.

So that being said, let’s get on to J.I. Packer’s quote. He said, "The saving power of the cross does not depend on faith being added to it...” This wording is correct, as our faith isn't what was required to satisfy the Father, but the quote doesn't make that point clearly. I think it would have better been stated that the saving power of the cross is the fact that Jesus death on the cross was the act that satisfied the justice required for transgression of the Law (sin), not by our faith.

J.I. Packer goes on to say, “...its saving power is such that faith flows from it." This wording is really tricky and the more I read it, the more I don’t like it as it suggests that we can be saved apart from faith. That would mean we could be saved without having come to the knowledge that are lost if we don't choose to accept the fact that Jesus has already paid our fine in full. I know that the bible says that faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Rom.10:17). I know that our actions show what we believe. So here’s what I can say about faith. When I was going through Hebrews last year the Holy Spirit opened my eyes a little bit more in chapter 11. This is the “Hall of Faith” chapter. It talks about how the OT heroes showed their faith. Put into my own words, these heroes believed that God would keep His word, and because of that, they did what God told them to do (they did the will of God).

I would say that God tells mankind that He wants us ALL to be saved (John3:17) and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1Tim.2:4). Jesus is the Way, ‘the Truth’, and the Life (John14:6). God wants us to come to the knowledge of Jesus as our Saviour. God wants mankind to know that just as Moses lifted up the serpent [on the staff] in the wilderness, so must Jesus be lifted up [on the cross], so that whosoever believes in Him [Jesus], shall not perish, but have everlasting life (John3:14-15). If we believe that God knows the end from the beginning (Isa.46:10) and therefore; He gains nothing by lying to us (not that He could lie – Titus 1:2); then He must be telling us the truth! This is what it means to come to the truth.

Kent Hovind said, “What you believe, will determine how you act.” Hebrews 11 shows examples of this. Therefore, if we believe the truth about who Jesus is, and who sent Him, and why He was sent; as an act of faith, we will do what God tells us to do. And God tells us that if we will confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. The question is, do we really believe it? If we really do, it will show in the way we live our lives. “What we believe, will determine how we act.”

The Pagan Origins of Christmas

(My personal comments on this subject are at the end of this article.)

by Chris Huffman
12/31/10

Okay, I am sure there will be some hate comments or at least negative comments for this article, but that is fine! If you are anyone who has read my previous articles, you know I am very straight forward, outspoken and blunt! I don’t water down the gospel and I don’t teach/preach a health/wealth prosperity kind of gospel! Jesus is my example of how to preach and witness and testify to the truth of his gospel and not worry about offending anyone’s sensibilities. He told it like it was and if you could not handle it then too bad. God is not just a loving and merciful God, he is also a just God and WILL punish sinners in the lake of fire. After all, Satan will be cast into the lake of fire as described in Revelation 20:10 KJV Bible.

I upset some people a year or so ago with an article blowing up the myth and need for Santa in the born again Christian home. Well, now I am taking the subject of “Christmas” much, much further by exposing it for what it is…a Pagan/Catholic Church adopted holiday!

I am going to provide some web links in this article for you to investigate this subject for yourself. Then it will be a matter of conscience for you…do I completely stop celebrating a Pagan holiday and toss all the junky decorations that go with Christmas OR do I keep celebrating it simply because it is “tradition” and I just love tradition?

Let’s see what Jesus and Paul had to say about this:

“And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.” (Mark 7:9 KJV)

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and NOT after Christ.” (Colossians 2:8 KJV)

So, let’s jump right into this shall we!

There is a lot to cover so I will start with the whole “3 wise men” thing. For some reason we have gotten it into our heads that there were 3 wise men that sought out Jesus to worship him. WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!! Read Matthew 2:1-12 KJV Bible and this will solve the problem. Scripture never once tells us there were 3 wise men. There could have only been 2 or there could have been 5. The fact that they gave Jesus 3 different types of gifts (treasures) of gold, frankincense and myrrh means that they just gave him 3 different types of gifts…period (as found in Matt. 2:11 KJV). Next is the fact according to Scripture that the wise men saw Jesus AS A YOUNG CHILD NOT AS A BABY! Read verse 11 again. It says “young child.” Even wicked King Herod told the wise men when they talked with him in verses 2-7, to go to Bethlehem to search for the “young child.” A young child is NOT a baby!! From the time it took the wise men to come from the east to Jerusalem would have been around 2 years or so. Then from Jerusalem to Bethlehem it would have been 6 miles or a 2 hour walk before they reached Mary and Joseph’s house, because that was where they resided for they did not live in Nazareth until verse 23 of chapter 2.

Now, let’s cover the actual birth of Jesus as in WHERE and WHEN he was born! You see folks Scripture gives you these answers when you “search the scriptures” (John 5:39 KJV). First let’s establish where he was NOT born. Luke 2:7 KJV tells us, “And she brought forth her FIRSTBORN son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was NO ROOM FOR THEM IN THE INN.” Ok, we learn actually two things there in just ONE verse. Jesus was NOT born in an inn and he WAS born in a stable BECAUSE that is the only place you would find mangers. Now, according to Noah Webster’s Dictionary 1828 AD, a manger is “1. A trough or box in which fodder is laid for cattle, or the place in which horses and cattle are fed.” Consider also his definition of swaddling clothes, “Binding in tight clothes.” A definition from Wikipedia says, “Swaddling clothes described in the Bible consisted of a cloth tied together by bandage-like strips. After an infant was born, the umbilical cord was cut and tied, and then the baby was washed, rubbed with salt and oil, and wrapped with strips of cloth. These strips kept the newborn child warm and also ensured that the child's limbs would grow straight.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaddling)

What a humble and simple place for our Lord, God and Saviour to come into the world huh. There is no indication he was born in a cave either like some people teach. But he was born IN Bethlehem and not outside the city like some teach. And even though a stable is not mentioned in Scripture it is safe to reason that Jesus was born in one since it is where horses and other animals were housed and that is where you would find mangers for the animals to feed from. Just Google Bethlehem, mangers in the First Century Israel or whatever combination of wording you want to use and you will find tons of helpful information.

Now, as for the “when” Jesus was born…well, that is fairly easy to discern as well. Any Jewish historian will tell you that Jesus WAS NOT born on December 25th based on numerous factors. The first being Luke 2:8, “And there were in the SAME country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock BY NIGHT.” In the winter time it is really cold there and rainy and the fields have already been harvested and are not producing any new growth. And secondly, the shepherds were watching their sheep, at night no less. They don’t do this in the winter because it is too cold. Hello? So those examples right there rule out Jesus being born in the winter. Now, even though Scripture does not say exactly when he was born, Scripture does give us some help in at least getting close, at least the month but not an exact date and month. The best way to figure this out is by knowing what the Jewish months are in their 12 month yearly cycle.

They begin with Nisan, which would be our March or April month and contains Passover.
Next is Iyar (pronounced ee-yar), which would be our April or May; then Sivan, which would be our May or June and contains Shavoot. Then comes Tammuz (yes that’s right Tammuz—the Jews named it that to serve as a reminder of the judgment that came for idolatry of Pagan Babylonian worship), which is our June or July. Next is Av, which would be our July or August; then Elul, which would be our August or September and is the introspection period for the New Year. Then comes Tishri, our September or October and is the Jewish New Year and contains Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Next comes Kheshvan, our October or November and contains Hanukah. Then comes Tevet, our December or January;
then Shevat, our January or February; and finally Adar, our February or March and contains Purim.

Now that we have an understanding of the Jewish months go to Luke 1:5-9 KJV. John the Baptist’s father was Zacharias and he was a Levi priest and held the office of burning incense in the temple of the Lord, meaning that he held the course of Abia, which was to burn incense in the temple. Zacharias belonged to a set lot of courses, two for each month and he belonged to the 8th lot, meaning he did his duty in the 4th month, (the course of Abia was in the 4th month). Now I have researched this as well as I can without my eyes crossing but I believe the 4th month would be Tammuz (June or July for us). In Luke 1:24 KJV says that Zacharias’ wife Elisabeth conceived John. Now move 6 months forward to Luke 1:36 KJV where the angel Gabriel tells Mary that Elisabeth is 6 months into her pregnancy. Well, if Elisabeth did conceive John in June then count 6 months later to December. If we just keep doing the math (and granted I was never that good at it in school) we come to John being born in March for a total of 9 months (since we know that is the length of pregnancy for a woman).

This would then tell us that Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Ghost in December, causing the supernatural pregnancy where the Holy Ghost would be wrapped in flesh, blood and bone for 9 months which would mean that Jesus was born in September! Now…just to clear the air here. I am not trying to “set” any dates for Jesus’ “actual” birth or anything. I am just relaying to you my personal findings and this is what I came up with, which I do believe is a very plausible conclusion, but feel free to do your own research. I have checked my research though against many other sources and the same result comes up as September (or even October) as being the time when Jesus was born. I LOVE researching and digging into issues and whatnot, so I know not everyone is like that. Take this to heart my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus BY FAITH ALONE, IF God did want us to know and observe the birth date of Jesus he would have said so in Scripture…but he does NOT!! Just like he did not have any information pertaining to the period of time from the age of 12 to when Jesus appeared to John the Baptist to begin his ministry.

Alright, with that under our hats, I bet your wondering now just how we came to celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25th aren’t you? Well, you can thank the Catholic Church and Paganism for it. First we know that there is NO Biblical authority for us to observe it (although we can remember his birth in our heart 24/7, 365), so we DO NOT need the Catholic Church to tell us to celebrate it on one particular day out of the year. No born again believers did this for the first 300 years of the early Bible believing church! So why did they establish December 25th as the birth date of Jesus? Well, December 25th was one of the biggest festivals or holidays for Pagans. The Roman world in Jesus’ time and for many hundreds of years after was Pagan, worshipping the unconquered Sun god, known by various names throughout history but in this time it was Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun), along with other deities such as Saturn. The Pagans had a greeting even for the revelry that went, “lo, Saturnalia” or praise to Saturn! During the winter solstice (December 17-23), many deities were honored under various names that came from Greek myth, since the Greek Empire had once consumed the world prior to the Roman Empire rising up to swallow the world.

There was even a Persian deity called Mithra, that became the religion of the Roman soldiers, hence Mithraism, that was honored at the same time, featuring numerous occultic celebrations. There were drunken orgies, men dressing like women and vice versa, gift giving and so on. December 25th marked the day when the Sun (sun) god would rise or be born anew in the Pagan world. The winter solstice was celebrated by Pagans around the world. In Ancient Rome, the priests of Saturn would carry wreaths of evergreen boughs in a procession. The evergreen tree was a mighty symbol of the essence of life and regarded as a phallic symbol in fertility worship. By the way, “phallic” means resembling a phallus and the variant of the word phallus means…an IMAGE of the male reproductive organ (penis) carried in processions in ancient festivals of Dionysus or Bacchus, symbolizing the generative power in nature. Coincidentally, obelisks (as found in Ancient Egypt and Rome) share a history with phallic symbology. And guess where you can find some of the biggest and most recognizable obelisks in the world today? In St. Peter’s Square in front of the Vatican (capital of the Roman Catholic Church) and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Check it out for yourselves.

Evergreen trees played a role in winter solstice worship. For every Pagan act and celebration, we find it almost entirely housed in the “Christmas” celebrations of today. People hang a mistletoe over someone’s head to steal a kiss; we hang evergreen wreaths on doors, walls, even our car grills. We cut down or buy trees in tree farms around the country and fasten them down so they stand upright and deck them with gold and silver and various other decorations. We toss a Yule log on the fire. Give gifts to each other eat huge meals. NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH JESUS! It is all Pagan garbage that belongs with the Pagans!

But the Catholic Church could not leave well enough alone. First of all, “Christmas” is a conjunction of two words: Christ and Mass…shortened later on to Christmas. The word Mass means death and is a Roman Catholic term describing the death of Christ, distribution of the Host (Jesus as the wafer-god) which is a word taken from the Latin word hostia, meaning Victim. So clearly “Christmas” is a Catholic invention.

The tactics of the Catholic Church were simple: in order to advance the Romish Church, the hierarchy just adopted or absorbed all the Pagan practices and feasts and superstitions into the RCC in a vain effort to convert the Pagans to Catholicism (not Christianity). The Bishops simply changed the names of the feasts. Consider this quote from The Encyclopedia Americana, 1946 article, “CHRISTMAS, the 'Mass of Christ'... In the 5th century the Western Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the Birth of Sol (the Sun)... Among the German and Celtic tribes, the Winter Solstice was considered an important point of the year, and they held their chief festival of Yule to commemorate the return of the burning-wheel (the sun).

”The Catholic Encyclopedia (online) says this, “There is NO DOUBT that the original Christian nuclei attracted PAGAN accretions (additions).” And again the Encyclopedia Americana says, “At the commencement of this festival, a great number of candles were lighted in the temple of Saturn... no business was transacted, schools kept holiday, law courts were closed. Jests and freedom everywhere prevailed, and all ceased from their various occupations.”

So when was the winter solstice celebrated as the Catholic Church’s Christ Mass? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, it was not recognized by the saints of the first 300 years. Ireneus and Tertullian don’t have it in their list of feasts. It was not until the middle 300’s AD that anyone began to “celebrate” Christ Mass. Consider the following from the great classic book by Alexander Hislop called “The Two Babylons” on pages 93 and 94: “Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honor of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven. It may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ adopted the same festival. This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism halfway was very early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition…That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies, with which it is still celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, 'about the time of the winter solstice.' The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among us -- Yule-day -- proves at once its pagan and Babylonian origin. 'Yule' is the Chaldee name for an 'infant' or 'little child'; and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, 'Yule-day,' or the 'Child's-day,' and the night that preceded it, 'Mother-night,' long before they came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character. Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birthday observed.”

Even with the Catholic Church “declaring” that Jesus was born on December 25th, Christ Mass did not take off at first. It was not until the 400’s AD that it was officially recognized and celebrated. But even by absorbing Pagan celebrations and changing the names of their gods and feasts, Rome could not convert all the heathens to become Catholic! The Pagans were already celebrating December 25th as the birthday of their favored god, such as Tammuz, from Babylon; Horus, from Egypt; Mithra, from Persia; Dionysus, Hercules, Perseus, Helios, Bacchus, Apollo, Jupiter and Sol Invictus, of Greece and Rome.

Among the biggest icons of Christmas is the tree. Consider this quote again from Hislop’s book “The Two Babylons” page 97:

“The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm tree denoting the Pagan messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the sun-god and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognized as the 'Man the branch.' And this entirely accounts for the putting of the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas Eve, and the appearance of the Christmas tree the next morning.”

Check out this quote from Jeremiah 10:1-4 KJV, “Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, Learn NOT the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”Are you getting the picture yet folks? Christmas is wicked Paganism and has nothing to do with Jesus and he has nothing to do with it! God hates all of this idolatrous celebrating of “Christmas” and Easter! Yes Easter my friends is a Pagan holiday and was celebrated long before Jesus came into the world in the flesh, unfortunately, modern corrupt Bibles by way of corrupt manuscripts, make Easter Passover thus confusing everyone. But I am working on a separate article about the Pagan origins of Easter that will be posted on Faith Writers by early March.

Sadly, who Christians think they are honoring as Jesus is actually them honoring the Pagan god Tammuz, who is mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14 KJV Bible, as is the fish god Dagon (Judges 16:23; 1 Samuel 5:2-5, 7; 1 Chronicles 10:10 KJV) and Baal. Everything that one can trace back to the Roman Catholic Church can in turn be traced back to Babylon. Anything in the Catholic Church came virtually from Babylon and in some cases from the Old Testament.

So what about the Nativity? Surely that is Christian? Nope! It was the brainchild of St. Francis of Assissi, a Catholic monk, in 1224 AD where he created a “living” Nativity scene where people dressed up in biblical clothing and the manger housed a life-sized doll of Jesus. Francis was the founder of the Catholic order known as the Franciscan Monks, who along with the Dominican Monks (founded by St. Dominic) led heavy papal persecutions against Bible believing born again Christians.

He (Francis) was the first to create “Christmas Carols” as well. Now, consider if you will the following quotes. The first one is from the covert double agent, John Henry Newman, a Vatican agent secretly encamped within Protestantism, who after outing himself in 1845, led hundreds of ministers, theologians, professors and Parliament members to Rome, made this amazing statement in his “Essay on the Development of the Christian Doctrine, page 373”:

“The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church.”

That is fascinating, especially coming from this guy, who was made a Cardinal in 1879. Now check out this quote from Father John Sullivan, a Jesuit, who said, “It is interesting to note how our Church has availed herself of practices which were in common use among pagans…Thus it is true, in a certain sense, that some Catholic rites and ceremonies are a reproduction of those pagan creeds.” (The Externals of the Catholic Church, Her Government, Ceremonies, Festivals, Sacraments and Devotions, page 156, from P.J. Kennedy, NY, 1942)

I am going to end this here, but as I said I will provide websites for you to check to learn more.

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Other%20Pagan%20Mumbo-Jumbo/christmas.htm
http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/holidays2.htm
http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract3.html
http://www.apostolicolivetree.com/pagan_holidays.html
http://www.acts1711.com/xmas2.htmhttp://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/xmas/celeb.htm

God Bless!

Fancypants' Comments:
I don't necessarily agree that the passage from Jeremiah is specifically speaking of a Christmas Tree, or of the bring in of any tree into the home and decorating it as the passage goes on to say, "They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. Clearly, this passage would be referring to an idol that was carved from a tree, and not a Christmas tree itself as no one would ever suspect a Christmas tree might have the ability to walk, to do evil, or to do any good.

However, the fact that Jeremiah is not specifically speaking of a Christmas tree does not negate the fact that the evergreen tree was used as a means of idolatry, and God warns us in His word to not do as the heathen do.

The excuses I normally hear from Christians is, "Well, we're worshipping Jesus, not a tree, or any false god." Or "That's not what I mean when I celebrate Christmas." Or, "No, last year, some Christian publication put out an article explaining that the Christmas traditions came from Christianity." My own pastor used the information in that particular Christian publication to refute the pagan origins of Christmas traditions last year; and then just last Sunday referred back to last year's explanation as proof that it's "hogwash" to believe that Chistmas traditions come from paganism. There's no doubt in my mind that he's truly a Christian, and he's very sincere, but according to scripture, he's sincerely wrong. The problems I have with these excuses is that these are the ways that Christians try to justify their actions, in order to do what they want to do rather than keeping themselves in subjection to what the word of God says.

Beyond that Christian publications and most evangelical pastors will refer to "the Church", but what they fail to specify is that they are speaking of "the Catholic Church". Regardless of what Christians want to admit, what they believe, or what they preach; Catholicism is NOT Christianity. It's actually the exact opposite. I'm not Catholic-bashing here, I'm just stating a fact. Catholicism is religion, which is nothing more than man's attempt to reach God based on his own merits. So I'm going to automatically question anything that comes out of the Catholic Church. Catholicism doesn't reflect or represent Jesus Christ, it replaces Him. That's why the Pope is referred to as the "Vicar" [or replacement of] Christ. Catholicism nothing less than paganism in that it is a melding of true Christianity and paganism, united under Constantine. Remember that a little leven, leveneth the whole lump. So, I don't care what Christians say, what they think, or what they choose to do. I care only for what God's word says, and how it explains the laws that God wrote on my heart.

All through the bible God tells us to be separate from the world, to be in the world but not of the world, to be salt & light to the world, and to let your light so shine before men. God tells us not to touch the unclean thing, to not do as the heathen do, to not learn the way of the heathen, and to not worship me [God] the way the heathen do. God was pleased when the groves [trees used for idolatry] were destroyed, and angry whenever they were reinstituted. Don't we see any patterns here?

Say what you will about your intentions regarding participation in Christmas, but if what you say doesn't match up with what God says in his word, you have been deceived by the father of lies. I would NEVER suggest that anyone who participates in the traditions of Christmas isn't saved. Christians aren't perfect. In fact, a lot of the New Testament was written in order to correct Christian's wrong understanding. However, if the response of the incorrect Christian is to ignore the reproof from God's word - well, let's just say, "it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

My job is not to convince anyone I'm right. My job is to point out what the word of God says - to sound the alarm so to speak. And for those of you that will label me a legalist, God's laws have been written on all of our hearts; but often times we don't listen, or aren't listening to what those laws are. I include myself in that by the way. More frequently than I'd like to admit, different things are pointed out to me from scripture, and at that point, there's a decision that needs to be made. Do I do what I want to do (translate that to "what's right in my own eyes") or do I do what God's word says? Well, my response will always be "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

If this blog post offends you, I’d strongly suggest you make it a matter of prayer. Nothing said here was of my own personal opinion. Maybe there’s a reason you’ve been offended. Maybe the Holy Spirit is using this blog post to get your attention. Ask Him, as it is ONLY He who can lead you into all truth.

Jesus in the Levites & Aaron

The Lord showed me something yesterday while I was reading His Word. It's just a glimpse, but it's interesting, so I wanted to record what I learned. The verses are from Numbers chapter 8. I noticed this down in verses 21 & 22. Here they are...

The Levites purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes, and Aaron lifted them up and presented them to the Lord as a special offering. He then offered a sacrifice to purify them and make them right with the Lord. After that the Levites went into the Tabernacle to perform their duties, assisting Aaron and his sons. So they carried out all the commands that the Lord gave Moses concerning the Levites. (NLT)

The passage says that "Aaron lifted them up". I find this phrase interesting. Aaron was the high priest. Jesus is our High Priest. Aaron "lifted up" the Levites. This term lifted up was used by Jesus in reference to being lifted up on the cross to be our perfect sacrifice. So in that phrase we have a reference to the Levites being a foreshadow of Jesus Christ in that they were "lifted up and presented to the Lord".

No one took Jesus' life. By His own divine plan, He laid down His life for us. It's also interesting that Aaron lifted them up. Remember that Aaron was the high priest, and that's similar to Jesus being our High Priest. So in this we have Jesus, as our High Priest (symbolized in Aaron), lifting up Himself (symbolized in the Levites) and presenting Himself to the Lord as a special offering.

After that, the Levites went into the Tabernacle to perform their duties. So what I see here is that after Jesus offered Himself to the Lord as a special offering He (symbolized by the Levites) then went into the Tabernacle. As Christians, our bodies are called the Temple of the Holy Spirit. I see a connection here. After Jesus offered Himself as a special offering to the Lord, His Spirit enters the Temple in each one of us who believes, and there, He performs His duties - guiding us to make wise decisions, growing us in Him, explaining His Word to us, etc., etc., etc.

Or if you want, you could view it as... After Jesus offered Himself as a special offering to the Lord, He went into the Temple in Heaven and performs His duties as intercessor between a good and righteous God, and sinful man. This is similar to the Levites who were intercessors between a good and righteous God and sinful man.

However, Jesus doesn't need to perform any more sacrifices. He needs to shed no more blood. He was a special sacrifice. He lived a perfect life. His blood is spotless and erases sin - once for all, for all time.

Go back and re-read Leviticus chapter 8. There are many others examples of Jesus Christ in Aaron and the Levites that I haven't listed. Like I said, verses 21 & 22 were just the verses I FIRST noticed the symbolism. Have fun letting the Lord show you where else you can find Him in Leviticus chapter 8 - and elsewhere as well.

Blinding Unbelief

So, currently, during the day while I’m working, I’m listening to a guy teach a Sunday School class to a group of adults on the book of Hebrews. His insight is amazing. We’re somewhere around chapter 9, but I’m not exactly sure, as I said, I’m working while listening. The information sticks, but the details like where we’re reading from sometimes escape me. In any case, God made a connection in my mind in what he told me through this teacher and it’s so great, I wanted to post it so I could always have my thoughts written out, as well as if anyone else ever reads this, maybe they can be edified by it as I was.

The idea is this…

In the Old Testament the nation of Israel chose NOT to believe God when He promised He would give them the ‘Promised’ land. They had seen His power. They had tasted His blessings. They knew He was God. Yet, corporately as a nation as a whole, they chose to believe that they would die if they tried to take the land of Canaan. In fact, they actually complained that they didn’t understand why God would bring them out of slavery in Egypt just to watch them die and their children die in battle against the Canaanites. In essence, they didn’t believe God would keep His word and give them the land of Canaan (which is symbolic of being given salvation). As such, they planned to stone Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, and then return to Egypt (which is symbolic of being in bondage to sin).

Wait a second, Israel was supposed to be a light to the world. ALL nations were to be blessed through Israel. How would ALL nations (the Gentiles, the world, more specifically… me) be blessed if Israel didn’t believe God and was sentenced to not being accepted into Jesus’ salvation?

In my paraphrase, God said, “You’re worried about your kids? Ok, I’ll take care of them. I’ll let them into Canaan (the promised land, my rest, the rest from my works, my Sabbath, my salvation) and they will be cared for, but because you have not believed in Me, you will not enter. Because you have not believed Me, you will wander the wilderness (symbolic of “a lonely place” later on in the gospels) until every one of you dies.”

In other words, the excuse Israel gave was their kids. So, because they were unbelievers, they weren’t saved, and the choice to believe Jesus fell to their children. Their children did believe and were saved.

Parallel this with the nation of Israel not recognizing (believing) that Jesus was their Saviour. They were given EXACT information as to who their Saviour would be, and even an EXACT date that He would make Himself known back in the book of Daniel. Yet when He did, they didn’t believe Him. Beyond that, their response was “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! May his blood be upon us!” They didn’t believe Jesus was the One who created everything. They didn’t believe that Jesus was the One who made the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They didn’t believe Jesus was the I AM from the burning bush. They didn’t believe Jesus was the One who brought them out of their bondage in Egypt. They didn’t believe Jesus was the One that spoke to them from Mount Horeb. They didn’t believe Jesus was the One who wrote the 10 commandments with His own finger in stone. They didn’t believe Jesus would take them into the promised land. They didn’t believe Jesus was God. And why not? When you stop and think it through, it’s really understandable that Jesus is God – as Israel would’ve understood. Think about it. When God made His promise to Abram, did He say, I am God “the Father”? No. When God reiterated His promise to Isaac and later Jacob, did He say, I am God “the Father”? No. When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush did He say, I am God “the Father”? No. There is no mention of God “the Father” in the Old Testament. So when Jesus shows up in the New Testament why should there be any doubt that Jesus is God based on the miracles that everyone saw Him perform and the way in which He identified Himself? Yet, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! May his blood be upon us!” And so it is.

Because they didn’t believe Jesus was God – because they didn’t believe Jesus was their Saviour, “…blindness, IN PART, was given to the Jews…” But wait, how will ALL nations (the Gentiles, the world, more specifically… me) be blessed if the nation of Israel is again blind? Jesus goes on to say, “…until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.”

While growing up, I’ve often wondered how the nation of Israel could be so stupid. How could they see God’s power, see Him, hear His voice, and still disbelieve Him; at times so blatantly as to make a golden calf and call it God. Why wouldn’t they call out to Him if they had doubts? How could they so easily forget the 10 plagues God used to spiritually dethrone all of Egypt’s false gods and bust them out? Now I think I know why. God had the nation do this so it would be recorded and He could show Christians like me the similarities between the nation of Israel who didn’t believe Jesus would keep His word by taking them into Canaan (saving them), and someone today not believing Jesus would keep His word by taking them into Eternal Life (saving them).

So the Jews are again blindly wandering in a lonely place of unbelief while others are being brought by into salvation by Jesus. And as soon as Jesus has every Gentile in that He has always known will choose to believe Him, He will take the blindfold off of Israel and they will recognize Him as their Saviour by the nail prints in His hands.

God is so good. God is so good. God is so good. He’s so good to me!

Jude, Gateway To Revelation … Conclusion

Intending to write a letter to the Church on the subject of salvation, Jude was prompted instead to write about the false teachers that were already infecting the church with their lies. He was just getting nicely wound up as we finished our first installment. Let's rejoin him now as he releases the full force of his torrent against them. And as we saw last time, he wasn't just writing about his times, he was also writing about ours.

These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. (Jude:12-13)

The phrase love feast refers to the early church's practice of eating together and sharing communion at their weekly gathering. It was an adaptation of the Passover Jesus celebrated with His disciples. Jude said the false teachers didn't belong there because unlike shepherds who understood their responsibility to feed their flock, these people are only interested in feeding themselves. Clouds with out rain fail to fulfill their promise of bringing relief from the drought. They get our hopes up but don't bring us comfort. Trees that don't bear fruit are uprooted. Jude called them twice dead because by bearing no fruit they produce no offspring and by being uprooted their own life is ended. The wild waves of the sea come from odd directions. They can knock a boat off course or even cause it to capsize. Wandering stars are unreliable and cannot be used for navigation. Anyone following them is in danger of becoming lost.

These four analogies show that false teachers are not just wrong, they're dangerous. And they're most dangerous to those who are least able to defend themselves. Like wolves, they feed off the weak and the stragglers. Jude said the darkest blackness has been reserved for them forever, indicating they're not saved. John confirmed this when he wrote the following about them: They went out from us but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. (1 John 2:19)

False teachers who deny the deity of Jesus or the sufficiency of His sacrifice, who blaspheme the creation and lend support to the murder of the preborn, who teach what they know to be false because it profits them, and who rebel against the authority of Scripture are not just mistaken. Jude and Paul say they know in their hearts they're wrong, and John said by their words and deeds they're proving that they never belonged to us.

Paul said, “such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” (2 Cor. 11:13-15)

When you're masquerading you're pretending to be someone you know you're not. Just like Satan knows he's not an angel of light, his servants know they're not servants of righteousness. These men are not merely deluded, they are consciously deceptive. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. (Jude: 14-16)

Some commentators use this passage to support their view that the book of Enoch belongs in the Bible. But Jude was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and would have known that the book of Enoch a) was not written by Enoch, and b) has a number of historical and theological errors. Jude was very specific in identifying Enoch as belonging to the seventh generation after Adam. The Book of Enoch wasn't written until several thousand years later.

Jude:14 is similar to 1 Enoch 1:9. But even if Jude was quoting it, that wouldn't indicate a blanket endorsement of the book. Jude could have had confirmation from the Holy Spirit that the original Enoch actually said what Jude had written. That would explain why Jude attributed the statement to Enoch rather than the book by that name. The important thing to remember here is that the Lord will come to judge the false teachers for the way they've twisted and distorted the truth of His word.

But you don't have to depend on Jude's quote from Enoch to verify the judgments that await the godless false teachers. Peter said the same thing. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. (2 Peter 2:1-3)

In Old Testament times there were false prophets pretending to speak for the Lord. Now we have false teachers who twist His word into something it was never meant to be. What they teach denies the fact that the Lord died for all our sins and just by receiving His free gift we can live in eternity with Him. Instead they use their influence to introduce destructive heresies that lead their followers astray. Peter added his voice to Jude and John saying, These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. (2 peter 2:17) And Jesus will seal the fate of these pretenders saying, “I never knew you. Away from me you evil doers.” (Matt. 7:23)

A Call to Persevere
But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. (Jude:17-19)

Here Jude referred us once again to Peter who warned that these scoffers would taunt us. “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” ( 2 Peter 3:4) These advocates of evolution contend that things always have been and always will be. They laugh when we talk about the 2nd Coming, as if we're being naive to think such thoughts. But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. (2 Peter 3:6) It's not that they never heard how things began; they've made a conscious decision to ignore what God said about creating the Heavens and the Earth, and how he destroyed it when men became evil. Against all the evidence they've decided to believe that God doesn't get involved in the workings of men and therefore won't be coming back, ever.

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. (Jude:20-21) Building faith is like building our muscles. It takes practice. Jude's brother James said it this way. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. (James 1:2-3)

An athlete looks for chances to test himself and faces them joyfully because it's an opportunity to make himself bigger, faster, stronger. We should be the same, thinking of the trials we face as opportunities to build our faith. We know in advance that the outcome will be in our favor, so we can consider these tests pure joy. They bring us closer to the Lord and help us look to that day He's promised will come.

Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. (Jude:22-23)

Like the seasoned veteran encourages the rookie, we can reach out to those who doubt while we wait. I believe Jude had Zechariah 3:1-10 in mind here. It was a vision, one of eight Zechariah had in the same night. The Angel of the Lord was there, along with Joshua the High Priest and Satan. When Satan began to accuse the High Priest, God said, “The Lord rebuke you Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? Joshua was dressed in filthy (literally excrement bespattered) clothing. The Angel of the Lord said, “Take off his filthy clothes”, and told Joshua He had taken away his sin. Then He had Joshua clothed in rich garments and said he was symbolic of things to come. He was referring to the day when the Lord would come to take away the filthy garments of our own righteousness and clothe us in rich garments of His righteousness. “I will remove the sin of the people in a single day,” the Angel said, thereby identifying Himself as Jesus. It's an incredible model I call the Gospel in Zechariah, and I think Jude was calling it to our attention for a reason. We need to remember what we were before and who we are now.

As we build our faith and wait for the Lord, we'll become so heavenly minded that our earthly clothes will remind us of the High Priest's filthy robes and we'll long to be clothed with our heavenly garments.

Doxology
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude:24-25) Jude's letter ends the way it began, with an assurance that Jesus will obey His father's will and not lose even one of us (John 6:38-40), but is able to keep us from falling and to present us to Himself without fault, as though we'd never sinned at all.

Summary
At the beginning I said the Epistle of Jude could be called the Acts of the Apostates. This is because of the author's focus on the false teachers. And remember they all claim to be part of the Church, even though their teachings are far from the Gospel.

Some of them say Jesus is not the way at all. They deny His deity, doubt the fact that He died for our sins and rose again, and dismiss His claim that you have to be born again. You have to find the way yourself, by living a good life, or learning secret knowledge, or joining their group.

Others say He's not the only way. There are many ways to God and as long as you're sincere in what you believe you'll find yours.

Still others say He's not all the way. He made it possible for you to begin your journey to God, but you have to complete it by your own efforts, living a righteous life according to their standards.

These are all branches of the broad road with its wide gate. They lead to destruction because in the final analysis they make you the author of your salvation. These are the acts of the apostates.

The Bible says Jesus is the way, the only way and He's all the way. Only by trusting exclusively in His completed work on the cross can we hope to see the Kingdom. Faith in His substitutionary death is the only thing we can do that isn't counted as work, and it alone is credited to us as righteousness (Romans 4:5) This is the narrow road with the small gate, because it makes Jesus the sole author of our salvation.

It's exciting to be part of a big crowd all praising God and caught up in the stimulation of a great musical production. There's a feeling of self satisfaction that comes from being seen by your peers as a shining example of what it means to live a victorious life. And there's an unparalleled sense of fulfillment to be found in expressing the love of the Lord to the less fortunate through missionary or social justice programs.But if you're not also a born again believer, none of that will get you even one step closer to the Kingdom. You'll just be one more victim of the acts of the apostates. It's what you believe in your heart that saves you, not how you behave in your life.

This was written by Jack Kelley on 02/05/11 and put up on the Rapture Ready website. Follow this link to go to the original message... http://www.raptureready.com/featured/kelley/jack159.html